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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Hello everyone! For the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some tips and ideas to help you create a travel and vacation album. Today I’m going to share some journaling ideas.

The day my husband and I married in 1980, he became “dad” to my three daughters from a previous marriage. Our first trip together as a family was a road trip from our home in California to my husband’s home state of Connecticut to visit his family and friends. We bought a Datsun popup camper shortly after we married and as soon as school was out for the summer we were on our way. I finally got around to creating an album that included that first family vacation 25 years later. Fortunately, I kept a journal then and it really came in handy when journaling about our travel experiences.

We’ve traveled quite a bit since that first vacation and I’ve kept journals during all of our travels. I use a simple spiral bound notebook or a small loose leaf day planner when we’re traveling and keep notes that include my thoughts and feelings and whatever else I want to include in my albums. Later, when I’m ready to create an album, I use my notes to journal about our travel experiences. Here are some tips and ideas for journaling in your travel and vacation albums:

1. When writing in your travel journal, include details – things you may not remember when creating your album. If it’s something you know you’ll want to include in your album, write it down in your notebook or journal while it’s still fresh in your mind.
These are two of the pages I created with the pictures we took during our first vacation in 1980. Considering that these pages were created 25 years later, there is just no way I would have remembered the details included here had I not written them down when they happened.

2. If you are traveling with children, write down all those cute and funny things the kids say and do. Then make sure that you include them when you are journaling in your album. These pages are from our 2004 Vacation Album. My husband and I spent part of this vacation with two of our daughters and their families in Yellowstone National Park. I had already journaled about the events that took place on this day on another page so I didn’t have a lot to say. Instead, I used the space here to write down what my grand-daughter, Amanda, had to say about the buffalo we saw on the road, “He’s probably waiting to get his picture taken.” :)

Again, I rather doubt that I would have remembered that Amanda even had anything to say about any buffalo we saw had I not written it down in my journal.

3. To save space in your albums, use your computer to type long narratives and print them on cardstock or other photo-safe paper. Typing my journaling on my computer not only saves space in my albums, I have the added advantage of being able to edit what I’ve written. I never fail to make mistakes when I’m journaling and it’s really frustrating to have to write what I’ve already written a second time. Typing my journaling on my computer and editing what I’ve written saves me that frustration (not to mention the time it takes to write it out a second, or third time!).

Here are two examples of computer generated journaling:

While you’re at it, you can also type a title for your page like I’ve done in the above example. I use my StoryBook Creator Software to create typed journaling and title boxes for my traditional albums. It gives me the added benefit of being able to add digital enhancements to my journal boxes and title boxes. Here is an example from my 2005 Vacation album.

4. Finally, use photo-safe, fade-resistant pens when you hand write in your albums. Creative Memories pens are both photo-safe and fade-resistant.

So that’s about it for today. Thank-you for visiting my blog and have a good time scrapbooking your travels.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

I spend almost the entire day re-designing my blog today. I woke up early with an idea on my mind and thought it would only take me a few hours. But, as usual, I ended up taking much longer than I expected. I tried several times to upload my own background paper and finally gave up - no matter how many times I changed the size, the file was just too big. After trying at least 20 different background designs, I finally decided to go with the black polka dots. Now I wonder what it would look like in white with black dots ..... I just might go back and see what that looks like!

Update July 8th:
I finally figured out what size I needed to make my background to get it to upload! Then spent another day playing with the design and ended up making even more changes. I had way too much fun! I think I'll keep it this way for awhile.

Anyway, happy July everyone! Hope you had a great 4th of July ..... and that you took lots of pictures!

About me

I am an Independent Creative Memories Advisor with a passion for preserving my photos and stories in photo safe albums. I hope to share my experiences as a memory keeper with you along with some ideas, tips and solutions for just about anyone who takes pictures.